Request for bringing another railroad into the ACL and SAL H.S.

I have been wondering for a time if there would be any possibility of bringing the Florida East Coast Railway into our historical society. After all, its history and that of the ACL were intertwined for many years. The FEC doesn't have its own h.s., and it would be great to see these three (ACL,FEC, and SAL) great railroads united once again. I certainly hope this thought does not provoke venemous reactions. Does anyone have any thoughts on this subject, or is the idea just too far out for contemplation?

Answers

I would not be in favor of including the F.E.C. in with our group.
Although a fine railroad and an interesting one, I think that someone
should form a separate Society for that road. If you start adding
railroads, pretty soon this will just be the C.S.X. Railroad
Historical Society.

I would oppose the inclusion of the FEC (as much as I like the road -
I worked for it for 15 years)becauce it had absolutely no historical
connection with the ACL or the SAL other than being a connection. If
we included the FEC, we could logically include any line which
connected with either railroad - and that's everybody in the South,
virtually.

I understand that the FEC either has, or will soon have - its own
society. I've been approached about joining it. I suggest, Don,
that you sit tight and see what develops on that front.

The Board has discussed the possibility several times of adding the
FEC to the society youre not the first to ask. Its an attractive
idea in many ways for the reasons you name. But we have always come
back to turning down the idea.

There are several reasons, starting with the fact that we are
stretched very thin already with the volunteer hours we are able to
devote to the society and dont feel we could do justice to taking on
a new railroad to cover. In the same vein, if we took in the FEC, we
would be almost duty-bound to take in the RF&P as well. In fact, an
even stronger case could be made for the RF&P, since ACL and SAL were
actually part owners of that RR whereas there was no formal
relationship with the FEC. (ACL did try to acquire the FEC in the
40s and 50s but was not successful.)

In addition we do not have any FEC material in our archives and
therefore no resources to draw from for articles, answering members'
inquiries, and the like.

Also, there continue to be hints that an FEC society may be in
formation there are a couple of FEC fan websites and one of them,
the unofficial FEC home page, http://24.96.36.62/fec/index.html,
says We are in the process of establishing the FEC Ry. Historcial
Society although the site has been up a couple of years with no
apparent progress toward an organized society like we have.

We do mention the FEC from time to time in Lines South, such as in
connection with ACL's through passenger service. Also you will be
interested to know that we are scheduling Mr. FEC himself, Seth
Bramson, as our banquet speaker at our annual Jacksonville meeting
next February.

Thanks for the input and well continue to be interested in how
members feel about this.